diff --git a/NAMESPACE b/NAMESPACE
index 74673b3..f9296cd 100644
--- a/NAMESPACE
+++ b/NAMESPACE
@@ -45,6 +45,7 @@ export(read.fs.patch)
 export(read.fs.patch.asc)
 export(read.fs.surface)
 export(read.fs.surface.asc)
+export(read.fs.surface.vtk)
 export(read.fs.weight)
 export(read_nisurface)
 export(read_nisurfacefile)
diff --git a/R/read_fs_curv.R b/R/read_fs_curv.R
index a5ed11a..69bea42 100755
--- a/R/read_fs_curv.R
+++ b/R/read_fs_curv.R
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
 #'
 #' @param filepath string. Full path to the input curv file. Note: gzipped binary curv files are supported and gz binary format is assumed if the filepath ends with ".gz".
 #'
-#' @param format one of 'auto', 'asc', or 'bin'. The format to assume. If set to 'auto' (the default), binary format will be used unless the filepath ends with '.asc'.
+#' @param format one of 'auto', 'asc', 'bin', or 'txt'. The format to assume. If set to 'auto' (the default), binary format will be used unless the filepath ends with '.asc' or '.txt'. The latter is just one float value per line in a text file.
 #'
 #' @return data vector of floats. The brain morphometry data, one value per vertex.
 #'
@@ -20,16 +20,20 @@
 #'
 #' @export
 read.fs.curv <- function(filepath, format='auto') {
-    MAGIC_FILE_TYPE_NUMBER = 16777215;
+    MAGIC_FILE_TYPE_NUMBER = 16777215L;
 
-    if(!(format %in% c('auto', 'bin', 'asc'))) {
-      stop("Format must be one of c('auto', 'bin', 'asc').");
+    if(!(format %in% c('auto', 'bin', 'asc', 'txt'))) {
+      stop("Format must be one of c('auto', 'bin', 'asc', 'txt').");
     }
 
     if(format == 'asc' | (format == 'auto' & filepath.ends.with(filepath, c('.asc')))) {
       return(read.fs.curv.asc(filepath));
     }
 
+    if(format == 'txt' | (format == 'auto' & filepath.ends.with(filepath, c('.txt')))) {
+      return(read.fs.curv.txt(filepath));
+    }
+
     if(guess.filename.is.gzipped(filepath)) {
         fh = gzfile(filepath, "rb");
     } else {
@@ -62,6 +66,19 @@ read.fs.curv.asc <- function(filepath) {
 }
 
 
+#' @title Read morphometry data from plain text file
+#'
+#' @param filepath path to a file in plain text format. Such a file contains, on each line, a single float value. This very simply and limited *format* is used by the LGI tool by Lyu et al., and easy to generate in shell scripts.
+#'
+#' @return numeric vector, the curv data
+#'
+#' @keywords internal
+read.fs.curv.txt <- function(filepath) {
+  curv_df = read.table(filepath, header=FALSE, col.names=c("morph_data"), colClasses = c("numeric"));
+  return(curv_df$morph_data);
+}
+
+
 #' @title Read 3-byte integer.
 #'
 #' @description Read a 3-byte integer from a binary file handle. Advances the pointer accordingly.
diff --git a/R/read_fs_surface.R b/R/read_fs_surface.R
index 30a27b0..a47880f 100644
--- a/R/read_fs_surface.R
+++ b/R/read_fs_surface.R
@@ -34,13 +34,79 @@ read.fs.surface.asc <- function(filepath) {
 }
 
 
+#' @title Read VTK ASCII format mesh as surface.
+#'
+#' @description This reads meshes (vtk polygon datasets) from text files in VTK ASCII format. See https://vtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/file-formats.pdf for format spec. Note that this function does **not** read arbitrary VTK datasets, i.e., it supports only a subset of the possible contents of VTK files (i.e., polygon meshes).
+#'
+#' @param filepath string. Full path to the input surface file in VTK ASCII format.
+#'
+#' @return named list. The list has the following named entries: "vertices": nx3 double matrix, where n is the number of vertices. Each row contains the x,y,z coordinates of a single vertex. "faces": nx3 integer matrix. Each row contains the vertex indices of the 3 vertices defining the face. WARNING: The indices are returned starting with index 1 (as used in GNU R). Keep in mind that you need to adjust the index (by substracting 1) to compare with data from other software.
+#'
+#' @family mesh functions
+#'
+#' @export
+read.fs.surface.vtk <- function(filepath) {
+
+  all_lines = readLines(filepath);
+  if(length(all_lines) < 5L) {
+    stop("The file is not a valid VTK ASCII file: it does not contain the 4 header lines and a data line.");
+  }
+  if(! startsWith(all_lines[1], "# vtk DataFile Version")) {
+    stop("The file is not a valid VTK ASCII file: first line is not a proper VTK file version descriptor.");
+  }
+  # line 2 is a freeform description, we do not check it
+  if(all_lines[3] !=  "ASCII") {
+    stop("The file is not a valid VTK ASCII file: third line does not read 'ASCII'.");
+  }
+  if(all_lines[4] !=  "DATASET POLYDATA") {
+    stop("The file is not a VTK ASCII mesh file: forth line does not read 'DATASET POLYDATA'. Only mesh data is supported by this function.");
+  }
+
+  # Starting from here, several data sections may follow.
+  vertices_df = NULL;
+  faces_df = NULL;
+
+  current_line_idx = 5L;
+  while(current_line_idx <= length(all_lines)) {
+    data_section_header_line_words = strsplit(all_lines[current_line_idx], " ")[[1]];
+    data_type = data_section_header_line_words[1];
+    num_elements = as.integer(data_section_header_line_words[2]);
+    if(data_type == "POINTS") {
+      vertices_df = read.table(filepath, skip=current_line_idx, col.names = c('coord1', 'coord2', 'coord3'), colClasses = c("numeric", "numeric", "numeric"), nrows=num_elements);
+    } else if(data_type == "POLYGONS") {
+      faces_df = read.table(filepath, skip=current_line_idx, col.names = c('num_verts', 'vertex1', 'vertex2', 'vertex3'), colClasses = c("integer", "integer", "integer", "integer"), nrows=num_elements);
+    } else {
+      warning(sprintf("Unsupported data type in section staring at line %d: '%s'. Only 'POINTS' and 'POLYGONS' are supported. Skipping section.\n", current_line_idx, data_type));
+    }
+    current_line_idx = current_line_idx + num_elements + 1L;   # the +1L is for the section header line
+  }
+
+
+  if(is.null(vertices_df) | is.null(faces_df)) {
+    stop("VTK file did not contain a complete mesh dataset (POINTS and POLYGONS sections).");
+  }
+
+  if(any(faces_df$num_verts != 3L)) {
+    stop("The mesh in the VTK file contains POLYGONS with are not triangles. Only triangular meshes are supported by this function.");
+  }
+
+
+  ret_list = list();
+  ret_list$vertices = data.matrix(vertices_df[1:3]);
+  ret_list$faces = data.matrix(faces_df[2:4]) + 1L;  # the +1 is because the surface should use R indices (one-based)
+  class(ret_list) = c("fs.surface", class(ret_list));
+
+  return(ret_list);
+}
+
+
 #' @title Read file in FreeSurfer surface format
 #'
 #' @description Read a brain surface mesh consisting of vertex and face data from a file in FreeSurfer binary or ASCII surface format. For a subject (MRI image pre-processed with FreeSurfer) named 'bert', an example file would be 'bert/surf/lh.white'.
 #'
 #' @param filepath string. Full path to the input surface file. Note: gzipped files are supported and gz format is assumed if the filepath ends with ".gz".
 #'
-#' @param format one of 'auto', 'asc', or 'bin'. The format to assume. If set to 'auto' (the default), binary format will be used unless the filepath ends with '.asc'.
+#' @param format one of 'auto', 'asc', 'vtk' or 'bin'. The format to assume. If set to 'auto' (the default), binary format will be used unless the filepath ends with '.asc'.
 #'
 #' @return named list. The list has the following named entries: "vertices": nx3 double matrix, where n is the number of vertices. Each row contains the x,y,z coordinates of a single vertex. "faces": nx3 integer matrix. Each row contains the vertex indices of the 3 vertices defining the face. This datastructure is known as a is a *face index set*. WARNING: The indices are returned starting with index 1 (as used in GNU R). Keep in mind that you need to adjust the index (by substracting 1) to compare with data from other software.
 #'
@@ -64,9 +130,13 @@ read.fs.surface <- function(filepath, format='auto') {
     return(read.fs.surface.asc(filepath));
   }
 
-  TRIS_MAGIC_FILE_TYPE_NUMBER = 16777214;
-  OLD_QUAD_MAGIC_FILE_TYPE_NUMBER = 16777215;
-  NEW_QUAD_MAGIC_FILE_TYPE_NUMBER = 16777213;
+  if(format == 'vtk' | (format == 'auto' & filepath.ends.with(filepath, c('.vtk')))) {
+    return(read.fs.surface.vtk(filepath));
+  }
+
+  TRIS_MAGIC_FILE_TYPE_NUMBER = 16777214L;
+  OLD_QUAD_MAGIC_FILE_TYPE_NUMBER = 16777215L;
+  NEW_QUAD_MAGIC_FILE_TYPE_NUMBER = 16777213L;
 
 
   if(guess.filename.is.gzipped(filepath)) {
diff --git a/man/read.fs.curv.Rd b/man/read.fs.curv.Rd
index e3b1fe4..04eb4eb 100644
--- a/man/read.fs.curv.Rd
+++ b/man/read.fs.curv.Rd
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ read.fs.curv(filepath, format = "auto")
 \arguments{
 \item{filepath}{string. Full path to the input curv file. Note: gzipped binary curv files are supported and gz binary format is assumed if the filepath ends with ".gz".}
 
-\item{format}{one of 'auto', 'asc', or 'bin'. The format to assume. If set to 'auto' (the default), binary format will be used unless the filepath ends with '.asc'.}
+\item{format}{one of 'auto', 'asc', 'bin', or 'txt'. The format to assume. If set to 'auto' (the default), binary format will be used unless the filepath ends with '.asc' or '.txt'. The latter is just one float value per line in a text file.}
 }
 \value{
 data vector of floats. The brain morphometry data, one value per vertex.
diff --git a/man/read.fs.curv.txt.Rd b/man/read.fs.curv.txt.Rd
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..28e21b5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/man/read.fs.curv.txt.Rd
@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+% Generated by roxygen2: do not edit by hand
+% Please edit documentation in R/read_fs_curv.R
+\name{read.fs.curv.txt}
+\alias{read.fs.curv.txt}
+\title{Read morphometry data from plain text file}
+\usage{
+read.fs.curv.txt(filepath)
+}
+\arguments{
+\item{filepath}{path to a file in plain text format. Such a file contains, on each line, a single float value. This very simply and limited *format* is used by the LGI tool by Lyu et al., and easy to generate in shell scripts.}
+}
+\value{
+numeric vector, the curv data
+}
+\description{
+Read morphometry data from plain text file
+}
+\keyword{internal}
diff --git a/man/read.fs.surface.Rd b/man/read.fs.surface.Rd
index 841dddc..36f4b09 100644
--- a/man/read.fs.surface.Rd
+++ b/man/read.fs.surface.Rd
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ read.fs.surface(filepath, format = "auto")
 \arguments{
 \item{filepath}{string. Full path to the input surface file. Note: gzipped files are supported and gz format is assumed if the filepath ends with ".gz".}
 
-\item{format}{one of 'auto', 'asc', or 'bin'. The format to assume. If set to 'auto' (the default), binary format will be used unless the filepath ends with '.asc'.}
+\item{format}{one of 'auto', 'asc', 'vtk' or 'bin'. The format to assume. If set to 'auto' (the default), binary format will be used unless the filepath ends with '.asc'.}
 }
 \value{
 named list. The list has the following named entries: "vertices": nx3 double matrix, where n is the number of vertices. Each row contains the x,y,z coordinates of a single vertex. "faces": nx3 integer matrix. Each row contains the vertex indices of the 3 vertices defining the face. This datastructure is known as a is a *face index set*. WARNING: The indices are returned starting with index 1 (as used in GNU R). Keep in mind that you need to adjust the index (by substracting 1) to compare with data from other software.
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ Read a brain surface mesh consisting of vertex and face data from a file in Free
 }
 \seealso{
 Other mesh functions: \code{\link{read.fs.surface.asc}},
+  \code{\link{read.fs.surface.vtk}},
   \code{\link{read_nisurfacefile}},
   \code{\link{read_nisurface}},
   \code{\link{write.fs.surface.asc}},
diff --git a/man/read.fs.surface.asc.Rd b/man/read.fs.surface.asc.Rd
index 17ebe50..3355501 100644
--- a/man/read.fs.surface.asc.Rd
+++ b/man/read.fs.surface.asc.Rd
@@ -16,7 +16,8 @@ named list. The list has the following named entries: "vertices": nx3 double mat
 Read FreeSurfer ASCII format surface.
 }
 \seealso{
-Other mesh functions: \code{\link{read.fs.surface}},
+Other mesh functions: \code{\link{read.fs.surface.vtk}},
+  \code{\link{read.fs.surface}},
   \code{\link{read_nisurfacefile}},
   \code{\link{read_nisurface}},
   \code{\link{write.fs.surface.asc}},
diff --git a/man/read.fs.surface.vtk.Rd b/man/read.fs.surface.vtk.Rd
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f042c98
--- /dev/null
+++ b/man/read.fs.surface.vtk.Rd
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+% Generated by roxygen2: do not edit by hand
+% Please edit documentation in R/read_fs_surface.R
+\name{read.fs.surface.vtk}
+\alias{read.fs.surface.vtk}
+\title{Read VTK ASCII format mesh as surface.}
+\usage{
+read.fs.surface.vtk(filepath)
+}
+\arguments{
+\item{filepath}{string. Full path to the input surface file in VTK ASCII format.}
+}
+\value{
+named list. The list has the following named entries: "vertices": nx3 double matrix, where n is the number of vertices. Each row contains the x,y,z coordinates of a single vertex. "faces": nx3 integer matrix. Each row contains the vertex indices of the 3 vertices defining the face. WARNING: The indices are returned starting with index 1 (as used in GNU R). Keep in mind that you need to adjust the index (by substracting 1) to compare with data from other software.
+}
+\description{
+This reads meshes (vtk polygon datasets) from text files in VTK ASCII format. See https://vtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/file-formats.pdf for format spec. Note that this function does **not** read arbitrary VTK datasets, i.e., it supports only a subset of the possible contents of VTK files (i.e., polygon meshes).
+}
+\seealso{
+Other mesh functions: \code{\link{read.fs.surface.asc}},
+  \code{\link{read.fs.surface}},
+  \code{\link{read_nisurfacefile}},
+  \code{\link{read_nisurface}},
+  \code{\link{write.fs.surface.asc}},
+  \code{\link{write.fs.surface}}
+}
+\concept{mesh functions}
diff --git a/man/read_nisurface.Rd b/man/read_nisurface.Rd
index 76364df..b06697b 100644
--- a/man/read_nisurface.Rd
+++ b/man/read_nisurface.Rd
@@ -31,6 +31,7 @@ Tries to read all files which can be constructed from the base path and the give
 }
 \seealso{
 Other mesh functions: \code{\link{read.fs.surface.asc}},
+  \code{\link{read.fs.surface.vtk}},
   \code{\link{read.fs.surface}},
   \code{\link{read_nisurfacefile}},
   \code{\link{write.fs.surface.asc}},
diff --git a/man/read_nisurfacefile.Rd b/man/read_nisurfacefile.Rd
index 118fdde..e861d80 100644
--- a/man/read_nisurfacefile.Rd
+++ b/man/read_nisurfacefile.Rd
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ Tries to read the file with all implemented surface format reader methods. The f
 }
 \seealso{
 Other mesh functions: \code{\link{read.fs.surface.asc}},
+  \code{\link{read.fs.surface.vtk}},
   \code{\link{read.fs.surface}},
   \code{\link{read_nisurface}},
   \code{\link{write.fs.surface.asc}},
diff --git a/man/write.fs.surface.Rd b/man/write.fs.surface.Rd
index a4e07df..046af33 100644
--- a/man/write.fs.surface.Rd
+++ b/man/write.fs.surface.Rd
@@ -34,6 +34,7 @@ Write vertex coordinates and vertex indices defining faces to a file in FreeSurf
 }
 \seealso{
 Other mesh functions: \code{\link{read.fs.surface.asc}},
+  \code{\link{read.fs.surface.vtk}},
   \code{\link{read.fs.surface}},
   \code{\link{read_nisurfacefile}},
   \code{\link{read_nisurface}},
diff --git a/man/write.fs.surface.asc.Rd b/man/write.fs.surface.asc.Rd
index 684628a..b3578c1 100644
--- a/man/write.fs.surface.asc.Rd
+++ b/man/write.fs.surface.asc.Rd
@@ -34,6 +34,7 @@ Write vertex coordinates and vertex indices defining faces to a file in FreeSurf
 }
 \seealso{
 Other mesh functions: \code{\link{read.fs.surface.asc}},
+  \code{\link{read.fs.surface.vtk}},
   \code{\link{read.fs.surface}},
   \code{\link{read_nisurfacefile}},
   \code{\link{read_nisurface}},